The Specter of Christmas
by Midnyght Saber
Summary: Amity Park has a tradition during the holiday season, aided by the Christmas Truce and their own native spook, Danny Phantom. But this year is different, but you'll have to read to find out why. Rated for a slightly risque comment.


**Disclaimer:**_ Danny Phantom_ and all related characters and information are the property of Butch Hartman and Viacom International Inc.

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Yeah, I know I said this would be out on Christmas, but I'm not so sure I can get online that day, so here you go. Merry Early Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

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It had become a city tradition after the Disasteroid, started on the first holiday season after the nearly cataclysmic rock had passed harmlessly through the intangible earth. Santa was there, listening to kids' wishes, hearing them out for the gifts they most desired. The week before Christmas, Santa bid the children farewell, headed off for regions far more snowy than the Minnesota town he'd been in.

One thing that the kids of Amity Park knew was that Santa, though he'd been patient and listened to them all tell him what they most wanted for Christmas, wouldn't be visiting them on the twenty-fourth night of December. No, for the jolly old saint was too busy, off delivering presents to other cities, other towns, other countries. But they did not feel bad for themselves. In fact, it was quite the opposite – they were elated.

You see, Santa made one call every year, enlisting to his aid someone he trusted to deliver the presents for him. Rather than a rotund man in a furry red and white suit, children waited up, sitting eagerly by the tree, for a figure in black and white spandex bearing a stylized D on his chest.

Santa's helper in Amity Park was none other than world-famous Danny Phantom.

Now, for all this kids who still believed in Santa, this story was their light throughout the cold month, the spark of hope that kept their Christmas trees bright. However, the older children and the parents who had actually enlisted Danny for this task knew better. Starting right after Halloween, parents would start bringing wrapped packages to the Fenton household, leaving the name-tagged boxes and bow-covered containers in the living room, giving Danny their address so as to assure that the packages reached their proper destination.

Once the gifts had been dropped off, Danny organized each set of gifts into two or three large red satchels, each bearing a copy of the delivery address. By the time Christmas Eve rolled around, the Fenton house was overflowing with gifts, Danny, by some miracle, managing to keep most of the packages stowed away on the second floor and in the ops center.

And once the sun finalized its descent below the horizon on the night of Christmas Eve, Danny, utilizing his supernatural strength to his fullest, lugged the bundles of gifts from his house to those that they belonged in, often getting mauled by children that waited for him, the milk and cookies that were normally left for Santa now granted to him.

Danny crouched on the ledge of the roof, his emerald eyes following the slow crawl of the sun towards its resting place, feeling the rising tides of joy that flooded the city as children eagerly anticipated his arrival. Much had happened this year, and for the first time in the eight years that he'd been doing this, the children feared that Danny wouldn't be able to help Santa out. He'd proved them wrong, his mother letting everyone know, in the second week of November, that Santa had indeed gotten back in touch with Danny, asking once more that he deliver the presents around the small city on this night. It was, however, a miracle that he'd been able to get back in time.

Maddie came up behind her son, deftly carrying the first bag of the night. "Well, your first one's clear across the city," she said softly. "You plan on being out as long as you were last year?"

"Hopefully not, considering Fright Knight caught it hard for violating the Christmas truce," Danny answered back, taking the large bag from his mother.

"Speaking of which, when _is _the truce active?"

"It's from sundown on Christmas Eve until eleven fifty-nine on Christmas Day going into the twenty-sixth. Everyone's busy in the Zone tonight getting the holiday feast together."

"How's that been the last few years? I don't think that I'll ever get used to the idea of ghost food, but as sentient beings, I really can't say anything about it."

"Honestly, even I was surprised by how good the stuff tastes. It's got this really weird aftertaste, but other than that, it's like dinner here in the real world…though nowhere as good as anything you've ever whipped up." Danny smiled over his shoulder, watching the last of the sunlight sparkle against the snow that covered the roof. "Well, I have to get going. I'll see you sometime around two or three tomorrow morning."

Taking off from his perch, the spectral entity, bearing a bag of gifts and donning the fuzzy red cap he'd just stolen off of his mother's head, careened into the sky, heading for his first house out of the nearly three hundred he had to visit.

- - - - -

If there was one reason that Danny didn't mind the truce only going until the end of Christmas Day was that the attacks and the subsequent fights gave him a way to burn off the extra calories that he'd accumulated while respectfully eating the offered sweets at each house he'd visited where the kids had still been awake to greet him.

House by house, bag by overflowing bag, Danny dropped off the gifts that had been left in his care, even enlisting the aid of the Box Ghost for the last hour, having found out the previous year just how useful his particular talents were.

Fright Knight, tired of having his holiday overshadowed by the start of the Christmas shop-and-drop, had decided that it would bring Halloween back into the light if the ghostly keeper of Christmas met with a little…resistance. Having launched the attack a mere three minutes after sunset, however, he had violated the truce, and the following four hours had been an ectoplasmic-free-for-all that ended with the Knight in the Thermos and Danny severely behind schedule.

Box Ghost and Technus had volunteered to help, quickly getting Danny caught up with his deliveries, the Box Ghost able to keep a large number of box-filled bags floating around him, Technus able to carry an extra two or three bags as well.

After the final bag of presents was delivered, Danny headed down into his room, returning to the Box Ghost's side with a small box, the tag addressing the gift to the pudgy specters' soon-to-be one-year-old daughter, Box Lunch. Once Danny had assured the spook floating in front of him that he would be there for the Christmas feast, the ghost flew down into the Fenton Portal, aiming for the area where the feast was to be held this year.

Looking skyward for a moment, the unusually clear skies alight with the fiery diamonds of the wheeling stars, Danny took a deep breath, steadying his nerves for the final trip he'd make this night.

- - - - -

Nearly every house was decorated in shining lights and glistening decorations, and Danny could feel the radiating joy coming from each where a child lay sleeping, dreaming of the wonderful gifts that were waiting under the tree.

However, one house was dark, no lights nor festive mood surrounding it, and Danny felt his spirits drop considerably. Even if the resident here didn't celebrate Christmas, she had always been a lot cheerier this time of year, and to see her home, and likely her, so dark and moody was something he thought he wouldn't find during this holiday season.

Phazing into the front door, Danny closed his eyes, letting his ears find for him what his eyes could not see. Catching the whisper of her light breathing, Danny floated upstairs, finding Sam indeed in the bedroom, curled up under the blanket, sleeping soundly.

Creeping towards the bed, knowing that his low body temperature would probably wake her soon, he curled up next to her, wrapping his arm around her waist, relaxing as his hand caressed the miniscule bump in her abdomen.

Sam's first sensation was that of cold, and she could have sworn that she'd turned the heat up before going to sleep. Rising out of unconsciousness, she soon realized that the cold was focused only behind her, a soft touch caressing her stomach through the blanket. "Danny?" she asked, disbelief in her voice.

"Who else would it be?"

Sam rolled over and, despite the cold, took the ghost next to her into her arms tightly, hugging him.

Danny ran a hand over her back, soothing her, letting her know that he was sorry that he had been gone so long this time. "I didn't expect this to take nearly as long as it did, but I'm back now, no worries."

"But it's not the same now, Danny, it's…"

Danny sighed. "I know it's not the same, Sam, and I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this year to turn out the way it did, but at least I was able to get back. You couldn't imagine the amount of work and red tape I had to cut through to come back here. It's not as easy for me anymore, especially with what's happened in the last few months."

Sam absently caressed her belly, feeling the warm, almost imperceptible, bulge.

"Speaking of which, how is the baby?"

"The baby's fine as can be, what with the constant testing that they have to do."

"So, you know the gender yet?"

"No, but since all babies start of as females up until the Y chromosome kicks in, we'll say 'she'. I don't feel comfortable saying 'it'."

Danny nodded. "Is she showing any of my…unique traits?"

"The doctors aren't sure, since they found a genetic abnormality that looks something like yours, but it doesn't fully match up, so they've been talking to a few of the ecto-researchers around the world to see if they could figure it out."

"Wait, if they're doing genetic tests, shouldn't they have known what gender our baby is?"

"I never bothered to ask them."

Danny smirked. "So I guess I was right?"

Sam looked at him questioningly. "What are you talking about?"

He leaned over her, seductively nibbling on her ear. "If I took you in ghost form, any child we conceived would more than likely end up half-ghost," he whispered.

"Well, it's either that," Sam replied, pushing Danny off of her, "or the gene is trying to stabilize itself to make her half-ghost. No one understands how, let alone if, a quarter-ghost can exist."

Danny sat back for a moment, eyeing his wife, looking at her with something between passion and sorrow. "You know, Sam," he began, searching for his words, "I know that you can't do as much as you like with the delicate position you're in, but why in the world aren't there _any_ decorations on the house? Wouldn't Tuck or your dad…or mine, for that matter, have come to help get the house decked out?"

"There's no need for decorations, Danny. I'm just not in a festive mood this year, so I figured that without you, and the baby a whole five months from being born, it just wasn't worth the trouble. Besides, it's not like I really have a reason to celebrate."

"I'm home. Isn't that reason enough?"

"It's not _you_," she stated flatly.

Danny huffed, having tried so hard to fight off this particular topic, having avoided it like ghosts avoided ectoranium. "I'm still me, Sam. I'm still your husband, the father of our child, your friend…I'm still Danny. And it's Christmas."

Sam couldn't fight the rising tide of tears, curling up into her pillow, sobbing quietly into the plush cushion. "It's not the _same_!" she screamed. "You weren't _dead_ last year!"

Danny felt like a dagger had been shoved into his non-functioning heart, and he could feel a cold worse that his ice powers flowing through his veins, spurred on by the sheer force of her words. The one thing that he'd been trying to avoid in the past few months was his untimely full death nearly three months before, an accident that no one had seen coming, and a death that no one would have wished upon the half-ghost so loved the world over.

Having been locked in combat with a ghost that looked startlingly like him, just with a lot more muscle mass, it had been a fight Danny chose to take to the skies, keeping his friends, family and fellow townspeople clear. Armed with an entire arsenal of powers that his alternate-future evil self never acquired, the tides had quickly turned in his favor, and he had nearly beaten the dark specter down for good.

In his final moments before Danny's powers decimated him for good, Dan Phantom managed to land a punch into the half-ghost's chest, not only screwing with the workings of his slowly-pulsing heart, but also dealing enough damage to the already battered man that, three thousand feet above the streets of Amity Park, Danny Phantom reverted back into Danny Fenton, hitting the pavement with a sickening thud and a sound that no one could mistake, jade-flecked crimson fluid running out of his body where his spine had broken through the skin.

Danny Phantom had died that day.

Caught in life between the worlds of humans and of ghosts, the powers that Be could not determine what was to be the fate he was to be given in death.

Was he to be sentenced to reincarnation to determine where his soul truly belonged?

Should he be allowed into the realm of spirits for eternity, granted the respite he never had in life?

Would he be cast into a limbo realm, not really from either world because he existed as something both alive and dead?

In the end, Danny had finally found his voice, asking for the one thing that he wanted more than anything else – to be able to return back home, to go back to the world and serve it until he no longer had a purpose to exist, until there was no one left to protect.

The powers that Be knew of his wife's pregnancy, searched his thoughts to know if it was truly his wife that he was returning to, but shockingly, it was discovered that Danny knew absolutely nothing about the conception of his first, and on the possibility that Danny and Sam wouldn't attempt anything after his return, only child. Knowing that his heart was true and that he wanted to just return to the life that he had, a life he'd grown comfortable with, Danny had been returned to the world he had known, his only warning being that he would live on beyond all the people he knew, for none of his friends and family were destined to become ghosts after death.

Upon his return, he was initially unable to face Sam, knowing that she, more than anyone else, would have been torn apart by his demise. However, when his mother finally recovered from the shock of seeing her now-dead son returned to her, she informed him that she, in May, was due to be a grandmother. When he had asked her who Jazz finally settled down with, Maddie couldn't hide the surprise any longer, informing him that it was, in fact, Sam who was pregnant.

The news came as a blow that Danny almost didn't recover from. Not only had she lost him just a month prior, but after his funeral had discovered that she was carrying their first and only child, a child likely carrying the ghost powers that had condemned him to his death.

Only as the holiday season was rolling around was Danny able to bring himself to visit Sam, but every time that he tried to visit her, she was never home, or she had purposefully left the ghost shield up. No longer able to become human, the barrier stood between him and his wife…between him and the child his wife was carrying. He guessed that she had been hurt by him not immediately coming home to her, especially in the wake of Maddie's announcement that Danny was back and that Santa had just been called, so the Phantom that everyone loved would, once more, be flying the night skies with their gifts on Christmas Eve.

Standing silently, Danny drifted into invisibility, hurt beyond words by the way his wife had so blatantly turned away from him, from everything she used to love, from the joy that this season once held for her. "I'm sorry I bothered you," he whispered, floating towards the closed door.

A pair of warm arms wrapped around his unseen midsection, and he could feel Sam fighting off the tears, her body heaving against his, silently quelling her pain. "No, Danny…I'm sorry. It's just…it's been a lot to handle. I wasn't sure what to think when your mother made the announcement, and when I saw you with her on the news…it broke me. Why didn't you come home?"

"I didn't think you wanted me anymore. I didn't think that you'd be able to handle being around me, knowing that I'm…" he drifted off, looking at the immaterial hand as he slowly let himself return visible. "I'm not me anymore, Sam. In that, you're right. I'm full ghost now, legally and physically dead. I can't…I'm not going to be any sort of father to our child, even if she has ghost powers. I can't…I won't be able to hold her, to bathe her, to be around her because of my low body temperature. I won't…" Danny looked at her, his eyes unable to shed the tears of his pain. "What am I to anyone now but another ghost floating around in the cosmos?"

Sam replied by taking Danny's hands in hers, pressing one across her belly, the other pressed against her cheek. She shivered slightly under his touch, looking at him with glassy lavender eyes. "You're the one that keeps our hope alive, Danny. Our hope for a future where we're safe, where we don't have to spend out days hiding under ghost shields and watching the world fall apart around us. You're the reason that we survived the Disasteroid, and the reason that the human world finally started looking at ghosts as something other than mindless, violent specters. You're Danny Phantom, wholly and completely now, and…in that…I think…we can find some small comfort. You're full ghost now, no longer bound to the fetters and limiters of a human form." She reached for the zipper of his jumpsuit, skillfully hidden under the fold of spandex, and she unzipped it, pulling the tab down to his belly button before pushing the skin-tight material away from his upper body, letting her hands roam across his cool skin, his body no longer marred with the scars of the fights he had suffered through.

Danny closed his eyes, his hands at his sides, as Sam's warm hands coursed over his body, and he reveled in the sensation of touch, stronger than it had been for him when only half-ghost and in this form, letting his ungloved fingers dive into her smooth ebony locks, the heightened senses flooding his mind.

"You've started over, something new, something stronger, something…someone who you were afraid to be before. It's all become a clean slate for you," Sam whispered, fingers tracing the non-existent scars that had once crisscrossed his torso. She looked up at him, placing a soft kiss on his chilled lips. "This time around, you can show those ghosts what Danny Phantom is really capable of," she smiled, "though I think for the sake of this not looking totally awkward to the rest of the public and the world, we might have to plan another wedding."

"Another wedding?" Danny asked, confused. "What for?"

"I never formally married your ghost half," she answered coyly.

Danny grinned. "Doesn't that technically mean that you were cheating on me _with_ me during our marriage?"

Sam cuffed Danny on the shoulder, pulling his suit back up onto him, tucking the zipper tab back under the suit as she zipped it up. "So what? You have something smart to say about that _now_?"

"No, just wondering."

"Hey, Danny?"

"Hmm?" Danny murmured, shoving his nose deeply into her sweet-smelling hair.

"Merry Christmas."

"More like Happy Chanukah."

Sam looked up at him. "What?"

"You have to admit, this _has_ been a season of miracles for us," he said, rubbing his hand against her stomach.

Sam could only smile.


End file.
